Peter Organisciak

What strikes me when considering the nature of text is how variant it is. For this reason, in reading Renear et al.’s examination of the theory of texts as an “ordered hierarchy of content objects” (OHCO), I cannot shake a feeling of complete weariness with the discourse.

A text is not something that can readily be defined. Texts do not undergo a strict assessment of their warrant as texts to earrn the designation; consequently, the definition follows the objects. There can be a remarkable range in the breadth and granularity of a ‘text’ definition, simply because it becomes a judgement call in drawing the line. We generally agree on only a few identifiers, such as the use of an alphabet, usually a language based structure, and oftentime adherence to a visual template (in our culture’s example, top to bottom, left to right rows).

So, does visual poetry qualify as a text? The poetry of e.e. cummings would face little opposition. A few, I would guess, might argue deeper visual poetry, where language is no longer used and the poetry is actually a image derived from the shapes and interplay of the different characters. Now, what about ASCII art? It’s simply a more complex parallel to forms of visual poetry. The Digital Mona Lisa, circa 1964: is it a text or simply art? What about if you start incorporating colour and size (e.g. CSS Homer Simpson) or time (e.g. Star War Asciimation).

I’m not trying to advocate a fully relativist view of text, nor am I a fan of slippery slipe arguments. Rather, my concern is with the aforementioned reading by Renear et al. It appears to me that, given any theory on text, one could simply take a position one step more radical and debate it, finding an example on the fringes of the definition. The paper explicitly sets out not to debate the OHCO theory on its merit as a framework for considering encoding issues, but to judge it as an all-encompassing theory. However, in considering the breadth and outliers in the world of text, I would say that the former is a consideration with much more value, while the latter is insignificant.

Google has just released software called Blog Converters, a set of python scripts with the purpose of converting your blog contents between blogging platforms. Currently, it supports Blogger, Moveable Type, WordPress and Livejournal. This comes just a month after they implemented Import/Export functionality into Blogger.

While it currently does not offer much value for less experienced users, this is a direction that I am thrilled to see Google pursuing. As we increasingly store our information online, it is somewhat off-putting that we are so limiting in our abilities totake it back.  For example, I have been using the online word processor Writely (now Google Docs) nearly exclusively for three years and, were it to disappear, so would 400 of my documents. This is what happened to users of AOL Hometown recently, which spurred Jason Scott to write a powerful call to arms recently. Some of the comments that Jason found, from the poor AOL users that missed the memo and have lost their data, are heartbreaking.

As a new school term starts and I find myself with three impending research proposals, I’m once again evaluating my priorities in Digital Humanities. What holes have we left in our digital development? This issue of data freedom over one’s own content is at the top of my list, and thus I applaud Google for their efforts. I can only hope that this philosophy moves into other areas of the company, which has left it’s own path of data destruction in the wake of recent service shutdowns.

Over the December break, a discussion broke out on Humanist on the nature of theory and whether it is something inherently textual. I found the shining moment to be when Stan Ruecker, responding to the wonderfully eloquent Martin Mueller, defends the concept of a prototype as a theory.

“I do agree with Martin that it isn’t necessarily a good idea to call all implicit purposes theories, which leads me to what I believe is the third advantage of saying “a prototype is a theory” — namely that it may help remind us that theorizing by prototyping is different from building production systems, however elegant they may be. There is always a temptation to forget that thinking by building, as Richard Cunningham reminds us, is one of the things we are about.”

This perfectly reflected my thoughts as I was reading through the discussion. A prototype is necessarily an embodiment of a theory for it to have any value. It is a statement of, “I believe this is how an problem can be solved, and this is a way that may properly realize that idea.” It can be argumentative or exploratory, but it should not be neither.

Yes, in practise this is perhaps not always the case, but as Stan explains, it should be. The semantic difference between the two is that a theory is, in essence, a hypothesis, which would technically make the prototype the test of that theory. However, the particular approach that is taken in realizing the test itself carries a collection of idealogical suggestions which bind the two together.

Note: To glance at the discussion yourself, start at “writing and pioneering” and read until the end of December and into the beginning of January.

This command searches the website Delicious. “delicious-search” conducts a regular search, and “delicious-popular” search through the popular pages.

I generally go to Delicious before Google if I know exactly what topic I’m looking for, as the sites returned are, in a way, peer-reviewed. The popular pages are great for tracking the newest important news on a topic.

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In early June 2007, I shared the following twitter:

Idea: ‘YouShould’, a suggestion site where people write open letter suggestions of ideas for companies, authors, and services

There had been two things on my mind. The first was the potential benefit to consumers that such feedback could allow.  I was inspired by Gmail’s suggestion page, where one can suggest what they would like to see implemented in Gmail next. Google appears to take it seriously, too, listing past suggestions that have already been implemented. The other reason for my idea was that I had been brainstorming for my senior thesis, which was beginning in September. However, once September rolled around, “YouShould” was crushed by the release of the similarly named Should Do This.  While perhaps no exactly what I had imagined, it was pretty darn close.  I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel, so I dropped the project.

Turns out, dropping the project was probably a good idea.  After Should Do This, there came IdeaScale, and CrowdSound, and Suggestion Box, and UserVoice, FeatureList, Fevote and CollabAndRate.com.  All of these had different approach to the same concept: getting feedback from customers.  Turns out I wasn’t alone in the concept.

Unfortunately, as tends to be the rule, none of these services seem to have gained any traction. Interesting on paper, there was not enough return to attract critical mass and make the idea suceed. One reason is that, with unsolicited advice, users do not gain a sense of contribution. One thinks, what are the odds that a company cared enough to seek out these websites?  Users want to offers their thought and suggestions, but they also want to be heard. It’s like that wonderful game my aunt always played with the kids: “who can stay quiet for the longest”. Sneaky, yes, but we certainly stayed quiet for longer than we would have simply for its own sake. This is why general suggestion boards have been failing, and crowd-suggestion businesses has been moving into infrastructure, offering tools that enable business to ask their customers themselves.

How many times have you liked a television show, and found yourself lamented the fact that —unless you’re directly being asked by Nielson or BBM— your patronage does not actually register? The broadcast system that television uses is by definition clunky: it transmits only one way, from one to many, without a direct capacity for information feedback. This simple concept was outlined in the Shannon-Weaver model of communication back in the 40s. However, while the flow of source > encoder > message > channel > decoder > receiver is adequate for describing technology, attempts to apply it to human communication have been notably shortchanged. It simply is not natural to our nature, not reflective of how humans negotiate meaning. The transmission model is not simply limited to delivery of television and radio signals. In a way, our entire consumer culture attempts this few-to-many transmission. Business online, however, exists within a system constructed to be (though not always realized as) many-to-many. Feedback is the nature of the internet. If you’d like to see organic cotton shirts at the Gap, the time investment in doing so would discourage casual contributions. More likely, your feedback would be much more crude, by shopping elsewhere, in which case the Gap is left trying to figure out why you did so. In contrast, a Gmail user conscious of the idea solicitation page can quickly send in a thought when they have it.

“It’s not the cost we’re looking at, it’s how we are making the application better for the consumer” —Jari Pasanen, Nokia VP for innovation acceleration (BusinessWeek.com)

In “How Nokia Users Drive Innovation“, Business Week outlines Nokia’s solicitation of its users for ideas, and the sucess that that have been having. Other companies that do so are Starbucks (My Starbucks Idea), Salesforce (SalesForce IdeaExchange), and Dell (Dell IdeaStorm). In these example, communities have formed around supporting and expanding on ideas. A cynical observer would suggest that these companies are looking for free business advice. The reality, however, is that it is in the best interest of customers to help build better products for themselves. Companies are constantly looking for feedback and those that respond as the people for whom the company adapts to. This idea is nothing new; what has emerged is the persistance and tenacity of users in doing so when given the proper tools.